Friday, August 26, 2005

Life has been pretty hectic lately. We had a few ants downstairs (maybe 10-15) and so we got the house sprayed. Well, according to Terminix, we angered them. The result? I came downstairs yesterday afternoon and opened the cabinet to a scene out of a bad horror movie- ants were EVERYWHERE. I called Brooks in a panic and he rushed home to meet the Terminix man and help me clean up. In the end, they had to bomb the walls and so Brooks and Veda and I spent a few hours at Starbucks while the chinchillas played over at Judy's. Many hours, some $300 in trashed grocieries and four dishwasher loads later, we were almost done...sigh.

To top it off, I've been having some serious mood swings. To Brooks' joy, I'm not much of a bitch, but I have become quite the cryer. It's bad and it comes out of nowhere. I'm also experiencing some times of intense depression and hopelessness that are balanced at the other end of crazy by these moments of such serenity that I can't even put into words. As my brother eloquently pointed out (after watching too much Discovery Health Channel), "you're really messed up right now"...(me- "what do you mean?")..."You have more hormones in your body right now than you do over every menstrual cycle in your lifetime combined". Yowza! No wonder I'm so outta whack.

I'm working on the nursery this weekend, so I promise next week to get some almost-done pictures up!

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Not too much going on lately, just working on the nursery and trying to get some sleep - the insane energy boost of the second trimester is quickly wearing off and becoming the exhaustion of the third trimester. So with that, I'm off to take a nap, but I'll leave you with another of the edited images for the baby's room :) (First one is Gi-Gi, my fathers' mother and the second one is Chief, my fathers' father)

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Tons of people have told me I'm crazy and I'm sure tons more will tell me before I'm done, but I want a natural birth. And yes, that means no drugs. We've researched all our options, read all the books, toured all the hospitals and hired a doula (who is also teaching our birthing classes starting in Oct.). I don't know how I could be more prepared for it.

I've been having some pretty interesting anxiety dreams lately, but last nights was pretty telling. I had nightmares all night of long, miserable, endless flights. If you read my post about flying home a few weeks ago, you know that it was beyond awful - I had drama coming out both ends, a sinus issue and my feet and one hand got so swollen I was terrified. I stood through most of the flight.

I guess because I was a psych major, I like to pick apart my dreams. And as I was thinking about this one (I was on a plane and the only person on the plane who spoke english and I had awful seats and there was no room and it was supposed to be a 14 hour flight) it hit me - the plane is the hospital and the flight is the birth. I'm not delusional, and just because I want a natural birth doesn't mean that I'm planning on having very little pain and a short labor. I know it will be hard, I know it will be work, I know it will hurt, but I also know that my body will be doing something that it was made to do. But this dream gave me a new way to explain that to other people...

Say you have this 14 hour flight to some beautiful tropical island. You know it's going to be cramped and miserable and that you'll get sick and feel awful, but the tickets were expensive and are non refundable and you WANT to go. So you prepare yourself in any way you can. And then someone offers you some medication. It will make you sleep through much of the flight and although you'll still be plenty uncomfortable, you'll be able to relax better. Sounds great, right? Well, there's also a great chance that this miracle medication will make you sick once you land. So sick, in fact, that you'll miss the whole beginning of your vacation being in a fog. And you can have side effects too, although they're rare. You might have a horrific headache for days or temporary paralysis...and some other things we'll just not talk about. (Of course, this says nothing for how bad all this is for the baby).

So the way I see it, I'd rather have a miserable, long, uncomfortable, painful flight and know that at the end of it all, I'll be able to walk off the plane unassisted and enjoy a little bit of paradise as I get to know this new person in my life.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

So I was talking to my friend John today and laughing about some of the silly things I did in college and I realized...this is it, I think I finally have to grow up! So you finish college and you lose the "but I was in college" excuse. Then you move into your own place and feel a little more adult, but you still aren't really grown up and can pretend you're still in college. Then you get married. That's a big one, but if you do it right, you get a playmate and you can both still refuse to grow up completely. Then you buy a house. Sure someone has to mow the lawn and do the laundry, but once that's done you're free to play video games until your hands cramp up so bad you can't move your fingers. Then you have a baby...and I'm starting to feel like that has to be where it all ends.

From now on, every decision I make not only affects me and my life, but also the life of this innocent little person who I am now COMPLETELY responsible for. That's an awfully scary thought. I've always had a difficult time with the concept of being defined by my relationships with others - most notably when I got married. It was a sad sad day when I changed my last name, although I know it made the most sense and I did it for all the right reasons. It's still a challenge for me to understand that I can change my last name, which is so deeply a part of my identity, and that I can become someone's partner in life and that it's ok for me to be defined as such and that doing that doesn't take away from who I am but only adds to it. Now, being defined as someone's mother is still something I'm grappling with. Although Brooks assures me that we'll still have time to play video games :)

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

We decided that we didn't want any characters in the nursery. Nothing with a face since I think that's creepy. So the question became what to do with the walls? I saw some cool picture frames and got an idea. It's a psychological fact that babies LOVE to see other babies, and since we're so far from family, I decided to collect baby pics of our parents and grandparents and siblings and old ancestors etc. I bought a bunch of craft frames and I'm working on decorating each one so that they add some flavor to the room. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try and hang them with ribbons or just hang them. When I was telling my Uncle Tom my idea, he suggested that I handcolor the photos so that they all look uniform and also have a bit of a younger appeal to them. I did and it's working great! Here's a sample - my mother's mother. The one on the left is the original and obviously the one on the right is the one I handcolored. They're all turning out pretty cool too! Meanwhile, I got wayyy too much enjoyment out of a story on Defamer today detailing how Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas PEED herself at the San Diego show last weekend. My first thought was that maybe that Duhmel dude got her all knocked up and she couldn't help herself. Too funny. Link to Defamer at right, scroll down the page for the story.